Back in the days when music ruled the world, we all had our benchmarks. The night The Beatles played Ed Sullivan. That day at Altamont. The many deaths of greats and those who would have been greats, from Buddy Holly to Duane Allman and too many others. Musical moments which marked where you were in your life and how important music was. Because music used to be that important.

Byron Isaacs is the kind of guy that makes you want to shout, Hey! I know that guy! I do, you know. Well, not know know him, but know him. Know his music. Know his professionalism and his makeup. Know his importance to the world of music. Sure, I only met him once, but that once was enough to tell me who he was and is. I mean, I know him. Get it?

I would have to explain the whole degrees of separation thing for you to understand how we met. What the hell. I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version.

I think Phoebe Bridgers was twelve when I first heard of her. I had just discovered Kim Grant, then cranking up Grand Ole Echo shows in L.A., and those shows quickly became legendary to me. She (and a colleague, whose name escapes me at this moment) was booking everything below the radar in L.A. and many of those became inspiration for columns or reviews— Old Californio, I See Hawks in L.A., Pi Jacobs, Little Lonely, and so many more. Occasionally she would mention Phoebe in her newsletters— mere mention of a young girl threatening to become a serious musician.

Jesus Christ, but 2016 was a tough year! The musicians (and people) we lost! The impending doom of a Trump-inspired government! The division of what was in some ways a country, a world even. Ideals crushed beneath the boot heels of hate, news warped beyond any rational thought, a world based upon a semblance of logic now an anarchy of thought and emotion.

…but I could never pull it together. Of course, when I was young I thought I was a musician, piddling with the tonette in fourth grade, drafted into the junior high band in the fifth grade because they badly needed a bass drum player, playing drums in what could be called a jazz band then (though we were really not good enough to be called that), playing drums in the high school band and in a couple of rock bands and carrying it on through college. I loved music and was always around it but I was never really a musician.

One thing about history. Given enough time, it is a shadow of its former self. No matter what happens, importance of virtually everything is either magnified or diminished depending upon a number of factors. By the time it has been filtered over the years, it is not even remotely what it started out to be. The Twenties obviously weren’t all Gatsby and The Thirties weren’t all dust bowl and depression. There was so much more than the War (that would be of the Second World variety, sports fans) and recovery from to the Forties and if the US had lived the Fifties like Hollywood said, we would have fought like hell to stay there. Of course, by the time it got to us, it was Cliff’s Notes all over again.